Last week, I awoke to the news that city council had
voted 7-4 to reject the rental housing proposal at
4575 Granville St. next to a hospice. While pleased, I was not elated like
others, given the urgent need for rental housing, and time and money devoted to
the failed application.
The applicant was rightly disappointed, as was the
late Morris Wosk in June 1990, when city council rejected a proposal he and I
submitted for three towers at Langara Gardens, creating an additional 280
rent-controlled apartments.
There was a
serious rental housing crisis at the time, and our proposal had the support of
the Urban Design Panel, the director of planning and certain aldermen. However,
community opposition was very loud, orchestrated in part by a senior city hall
planner who was concerned the new development would block his bedroom’s view of
Mount Baker.
Three
decades later, council has approved a much higher density Langara Gardens plan
for 2,100 homes that will dwarf the four existing 18-storey towers.
Returning
to Granville Street, while some councillors expressed concern about
affordability, Jean Swanson voted against the motion, in part, because the
owner would get a huge increase in value if the property was upzoned.
Would she
have opposed Banting and Best’s discovery of insulin in the early 1920s because
they too would make money from their invention?
While I
expected the mayor to support the rezoning, I was surprised by Coun. Christine
Boyle’s vote since I thought she would be sympathetic to the hospice’s
concerns. But I owe her an apology since I missed her remarks at the public
hearing, which she subsequently set out in a thoughtful, caring online
editorial.
Like Boyle,
I too hope we will see future rental housing proposals elsewhere along
Granville Street and in Shaughnessy. However, before council considers more
spot-rezonings, we need an overall Granville Corridor plan and design
guidelines.
Ten years
ago, the city approved a three-phase planning program for the Cambie Corridor.
A comprehensive plan with detailed planning guidelines was prepared for each
portion of the street, and dozens of applications came forward to replace aging
bungalows with six- to eight-storey apartment buildings and townhouses.
While the
resulting designs and character may not be to everyone’s liking, Cambie Street
has become a dense, urban street. Redevelopment is now extending into
surrounding neighbourhoods.
Granville
Street has always had a different character than Cambie Street. While it does
not have a central landscaped median, it is lined with green ribbons of trees,
hedges and gardens.
A new
Granville Corridor Plan should retain this overall character by allowing
mansions to be subdivided into suites and additional infill housing, while
other single-family properties are redeveloped with apartments, townhouses, and
stacked townhouses.
However,
city hall should improve the approval process for Granville Street and not
repeat the process used along Cambie Street. There, rather than simply require
development and building permits, the city insisted that every application go
through a separate rezoning process. This resulted in considerable effort and
costs for applicants, city staff and council, not to mention unnecessary,
lengthy delays.
For
Granville Street, the city should prepare an overall plan, and then
expeditiously approve development permits for applications if in accordance
with the plan.
The same
should happen along the West Broadway Corridor.
As recently reported in
the Courier, a developer has proposed another rezoning for the former Denny’s
site at Birch Street. I say “another” since a 2018 rezoning increased the
permitted height from 12 storeys to 16 and floor space ratio from 3.0 to 7.07
for a secured rental housing project. The latest proposal is for 28 storeys (FSR
10.7) and is in response to a new moderate-income rental housing program that
allows spot rezonings.
Many
neighbourhood residents, architects and planners are concerned the latest
proposal is out of scale with its surroundings and should not be approved,
especially in advance of an overall plan for the Broadway Corridor. I agree.
While there
is an urgent need for affordable rental housing, there is also a need to plan
for a beautiful city. Spot rezonings that increase density in the name of
affordability need not always be supported.
After all,
sometimes big can be too big.
No comments:
Post a Comment